Fussiness down to a tee

For some reason Labour MPs are obsessed with golf clubs - the social organisations, that is, not the things you hit balls with. Most sane people can't stand them. Even many golfers can't stand golf clubs.

All those self-important committee members and bossy secretaries, the anal-retentive rules about what you can wear at precisely what time in exactly which location, the fusspotty suggestion books ("Am I alone in thinking we should be provided with more custard for the jam roly-poly?"), their unique language (asking "what's your poison?" instead of "what would you like to drink?"), the cartoons of forgotten past captains, the gilt statuette of some idiot in plus-fours and a Pringle pullover labelled The Protheroe-Havisham Trophy, the old-before-their-time young men in tweed jackets, the notices everywhere about what shoes you are allowed to wear in the toilets - how horrible it all is!

(Every few years when I find myself in a golf club, I feel an urge to write extra rule up on the noticeboard: "Members are instructed that it is strictly against club rules to use a JCB to recover balls from the bunkers. Urinating on the lounge carpet is a contravention of Rule XVII.vi.(c). Couples are reminded that they may NOT fornicate on the greens but must restrict themselves to the fairways. By order, J. Protheroe-Havisham, Secretary")

I cannot understand why any woman enjoys a game of golf so much that they would actually want to set foot in a golf club, never mind belong to one.

Yet their case is constantly taken up by Labour MPs. The latest to ride to their rescue yesterday was David Taylor.

Mr Taylor told the women's minister, Meg Munn, that the "glorious game of golf" was a "15th century gift from Scotland to the wider world", but that many clubs were "stuck in the social bunker of that bygone era".

Apparently in a lot of these places women are not allowed to use some of the facilities, and can't take part in running the club. Is that so? Be still, my beating heart!

Golf club members guilty of unthinking sexism! Who could have conceived of it?

Was the minister, Mr Taylor inquired, "up for the tussle with the antediluvian tendency in the sport ... so that at last women and men will be on a par?" Ms Munn ignored the awful puns and took it all very seriously.

She warned that the government was even now considering how the problem could be addressed, which presumably means yet more laws.

Julie Kirkbride pointed out that some clubs did not admit women at all, including the Royal & Ancient in St Andrews, which is the governing body of golf. Ms Munn was evasive.

There were some clubs where men, or women, had decided to keep themselves exclusive to just one "gender".

In other words, one fine day it would be illegal to discriminate against women inside a golf club, but not to keep them out altogether. It's a very New Labour compromise, though it seems highly unlikely that they will get round to doing anything while they're still in office.